Most companies, whether big or small, face one common but widespread problem – that of their keywords not ranking high in Google. Ranking on page 2 or subsequent pages sharply reduces the chances of being seen by potential visitors, so the question is not really “to rank or not to rank” but “how to rank” on page 1.

With competition intensifying, each company wants its keywords to rank on page 1 of Google but most do not know how to go about the process of improving the ranking.

There are two methods of improving ranking- On-page and Off-page optimization. This blog talks about On-page optimization.

One of the basic tenets of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is that each web page must have proper meta tags in place in the source code. These are the title and description tags that one may see in well designed pages (by pressing Ctrl U on either Firefox or Chrome.) Yet, it is amazing that a very high percentage of companies either do not have meta tags in place or have defective meta tags. The starting point therefore is to use a competent digital agency to analyze the meta tags on each web page and get them to insert proper tags.

There are also many cases of large companies whose website has grown explosively and who are then at a loss as to where to start optimizing their web pages.

If your company has over 30,000 pages, for example, where does one start? This was a dilemma faced by one of our clients. The solution that we offered: do an A-B-C- analysis of the pages to see which pages get the maximum traffic and start optimizing those pages first. It turned out that just 300 pages of this company attracted over 70% of the traffic and these pages provided a good starting point for SEO.

Once the meta tags have been inserted, the content of each page needs to be examined to check the keyword density. If the meta tags speak of, say, digital widgets, but the incidence of the phrase “digital widgets” is very low in the page, Google would tend to assume that the page is not really about digital widgets and down-rank the page. A competent digital agency needs to study and fix the keyword density in the content as described above. This would result in an enhancement of ranking. Pages also need to be periodically revisited and their content checked so as to ensure that they are up-to-date. This can enhance search engine rankings.

Many websites achieve high page rankings after having carried out the SEO exercise. However, rankings are dynamic and keep moving up and down (a.k.a the Google Shuffle). Companies must, therefore, constantly monitor the pages on their website to ensure that they maintain the rankings. This is best done by their digital agency who will take corrective steps as soon as a ranking drop is noticed to get the ranking restored.

Finally, make sure that the Google crawler can visit every page of your website. This is best achieved by having a site map on the home page.

About Prakash Subbarao: Prakash was one of the most energetic people we have worked with at pepper square. He was an avid quizzer and conducted professional quizzes at various events. A specialist in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), his strategic expertise has directly influenced sales and visibility for many of our clients. An early adopter of Internet technology Prakash started Bangalore’s first corporate bulletin board service (BBS) during the pre-internet days. He has also developed Dubai’s largest database, which he later sold to a British company. He passed away in November 2010.

2 Responses

SEO is important – but recent times I found that entrepreneurs spend most of their money and time on SEO optimization instead of their service. SEO will get the customers into the website, but make sure you should have something great to sell in your website also. SEO and content should go hand in hand.
Thanks for the quick and powerful tip Ctl U.

As we know SEO have the vital role in ranking of web sites. We can optimise our website with google adwords. Here we are giving certain keywords wich related to our website. It should match with meta keywords. And most important thing is dont put too many keywords. The effective range is 15 to 20 keywords..